This is a list of first-hand accounts of Guantanamo detainees, published as columns. Detainees began arriving at Guantanamo Bay sixteen years ago today.

For me it is not easy to suppress the images of Guantánamo. I am haunted by my own memories, the isolation cell, the food and sleep deprivation, the beatings, the daily humiliation and the brutality. And I keep thinking about the men I met while I was in that place.

Rabbani wrote about being on hunger strike. He is a Pakistani citizen of Rohingya origin. He was accused of being a member of and facilitating al Qaeda in an apparent case of mistaken identity. He is yet to be charged.

Sami al-Hajj was a Sudanese journalist working for Al Jazeera when he was detained in Pakistan and transferred to Afghanistan, and then Guantanamo. He was released after eight years, in 2008. He wrote about his detention and imprisonment.

Kurnaz is a Turkish citizen who was born in Germany in 1982. He was accused of affiliations with the Tablighi Jamaat and al Qaeda. Kurnaz was released in 2006. He wrote about Younus Chekkouri, a Moroccan detainee who was detained by Morocco after his release from Guantanamo.

In 2008, my demand for a fair legal process went all the way to America’s highest court. In a decision that bears my name, the Supreme Court declared that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.” It ruled that prisoners like me, no matter how serious the accusations, have a right to a day in court. The Supreme Court recognized a basic truth: the government makes mistakes. And the court said that because “the consequence of error may be detention of persons for the duration of hostilities that may last a generation or more, this is a risk too significant to ignore.